Headwaters Academy

At Headwaters Academy, a Bozeman independent middle school, we see students learning leadership skills that benefit our school every day. Beyond the benefit to our school, what can leadership skill development do for the adolescents in our greater community in the Gallatin Valley? Additionally, how can we help individual adolescents form a broader sense of their own leadership identity and an enhanced understanding of their own personal strengths and capacity? Everyone stands to benefit from improving leadership skills and effectiveness in the leaders of tomorrow.

To ensure that our community in Bozeman is cultivating a generation of leaders, our school is uniquely interested in the paper “Understanding the Leaders of Tomorrow: The Need to Study Leadership in Adolescence” which makes a case for adding a multidisciplinary developmental perspective to leadership research. The study was published in November 2022 by Perspectives on Psychological Science

• How can we take concepts from the study of leadership in adults and extend them to adolescents?

• How can we include adolescent-focused research on peer influence and cognitive and behavioral development to form a more nuanced model of how leadership develops through life stages?

• How can we study adolescent leaders in athletics, social justice efforts, extracurriculars and social media to better understand how early leadership takes shape?

• How can we develop leadership interventions to maximize potential and facilitate better diversification of the leadership pipeline?

“The rapid development of personality, peer relationships, values and vocational identity during this period make adolescence an optimal time for developing leadership potential,” said Jennifer Tackett, a clinical psychologist at Northwestern University and the paper’s corresponding author.

One of the conditions that promotes healthy youth development is supported through programs and activities in schools and communities. Youth development researchers and practitioners emphasize that effective programs and interventions recognize youths’ strengths and seek to promote positive development, rather than addressing risks in isolation. Youth who are constructively involved in learning and doing, and who are connected to positive adults and peers, are less likely to engage in risky or self-defeating behaviors.

Providing the conditions for positive youth development is a responsibility shared by families, schools and communities.

Headwaters Academy has developed a summer day camp created to foster leadership development for adolescents. In partnership with well-designed and well-run local nonprofit camps, Camp Headwaters aims to promote youth leadership by involving youth in everything “camp,” including needs assessment, planning, implementation and evaluation. Goals include the intention for youth to serve alongside our Board of Directors and those of other nonprofit organizations in the valley.

Camp Headwaters will engage participating youth in constructive action through activities such as service learning, arts and athletics; and emphasize common values such as friendship, citizenship and learning.

Camp info:

Who: Camp Headwaters for rising fifth through rising eighth graders.

Where: Headwaters Academy, 1005 Durston Road, Bozeman

What: A series of weeklong Summer Leadership Camps with a Junior Counselor program serving the World Language Institute and/or Gallatin Valley Farm to Schools.

When: June 19-22, June 26-29, July 10-13, July 17-20, and July 24-27

Why: Everyone stands to benefit from improving skills, proficiency and effectiveness in the leaders of tomorrow.

How: Application available at: www.headwatersacademy.org

Please join us. Young leaders have emerged as some of the more prominent voices in the world today. From climate activists to young inventors, modern youth inspire people all over the globe, both young and old. We have kids changing the world.

With their raised voices, teen leaders have become a source of education and influence on modern social issues, a source that will hopefully bring about change to help better society.

Gennifre Hartman is a local educator who has worked with students from ages 3-80 during her career. Currently, she is the Head of School at Headwaters Academy, an independent 6-8 middle school in Bozeman. Additionally, she is the proud parent of two high schoolers, a 9th and a 12th grader, both making big transitions in the world.